Bruises and Demigods
by spatchka
Summary: It is a rainy night and Sanzo and Gojyo are sharing a room. Things ensue, of course.


There. Edited. I don't own Saiyuki; Sanzo and Jonathan Rhys Meyers are both demigods.  
  
BRUISES AND DEMIGODS  
  
Gojyo knew he had no business there, as a gray trail of smoke rose atop his head. It was one of those rainy nights and they were all stuck inside the inn.  
  
The inn was derelict and had whitewashed walls. The trapped air smelled like toast, burnt pork and cigarettes and everything was dusty like it hadn't been touched for decades. It wasn't charming, in other words. None of them ever trusted those backwater towns but they had no choice.  
  
Gojyo still had a pack of cigarettes; not his favorite brand, but they'd have to do. He hadn't bothered to ask the innkeeper if they keep some bottles of beer (or any kind of liquor for that matter) in one of the shoddy cupboards in the kitchen. He doubted the innkeeper even knew what beer would look like. Sighing-- a bit thwarted, a bit tired and generally just depressed-- he figured that indeed, things could have been worse and that they could have ended up cramped under a jutted rock with nothing but the bare wet earth for their sleeping pads.  
  
The proletarian inn was something they should be thankful about.  
  
But somehow, that did not give any comfort. In fact, he thought he would be better off under that jutted rock than in any other corner of that godforsaken place. It would be undoubtedly uncomfortable, but at least-- he thought almost audibly as smoke rings rose and disappeared in the air-- at least it would not be this depressing.  
  
He disliked this sort of setting. Or rather, he disliked the sentiment that goes with this sort of setting.  
  
True, it hadn't been raining on that day. That dreadful day that until now is stamped on his brain, like carved `I love you's on tree barks. The analogy is of course debatable if not amusing. And he found himself sneering while sucking the cigarette. The rain almost always had that sort of effect. It made one nervous enough. It made one think too much. The mind intrusively work up these horrible recollections as a groggy reaction to the rain: to its coldness, to its din, to its total lack of joviality.  
  
"Fuck." He cursed: the starch-stiff blanket, the crevices that disparagingly wound their way up the walls, the heavy rain outside, the sodden draft from a broken window, the bitter taste of the cigarette, his goddamn silent roommate.  
  
Just then, his eyes trailed from watching the gray smoke to the figure all but shriveling in the next bed.  
  
Sanzo had been staring at the same page for the past 40 minutes and his reading glasses were halfway down his nose. It was nights like these that Sanzo simply was not Sanzo, Gojyo noted in between wisps of smoke. He found himself mulling over the most revered priest. That definitely was most arguable. If they only knew how the bastard handles the Wesson, they wouldn't be revering him at all. But he looked once more, with great difficulty because of the newspaper, at the priest whose face was that of jumbled emotions.  
  
It was funny because Sanzo never manifests any emotion. And now there, in that shabby room they shared, he was letting his guards down. He was letting the kappa glimpse a side of him that was supposed to be very well hidden. And Gojyo was inexplicably unnerved. The proper thing to do was to mind his own business and continue staring at the smoke trails, the crevices, the roaches that now and then creep out of the crevices, the rain (for chrissake). Anything but the shriveling Sanzo. But strangely enough, he couldn't break his stare.  
  
It was fascinating in an offbeat way how the room's shadows were playing upon the golden tresses and the gleaming skin. It was fascinating how his violet eyes shifted colors underneath his glasses-- but was it even possible for eyes to change colors? He thought the cigarettes might have been drugged and he stubbed it out in a solitary ashtray.  
  
He stretched. It took a good deal of effort to tell himself to do so; just to break the silence, make the stifled air dynamic again. He managed to stare at something else in the process. The robes that were given to them by the innkeeper's wife were folded neatly on a chair. He noted that his clothes were still damp and were apparently quite uncomfortable.  
  
He got up, went to a semi-private area and started changing, consciously eyeing the priest all the time from the corner of his eye. It had been his little vanity, if one should call it such. His little vanity of seducing those charming enough to be seduced. Of course, Sanzo was far from charming; rather he was astute, cold-hearted, and murderous even. He was charming in the sense that his appearance could deceive passers-by and those who catch a portion or an angle of his face, of his hair, of his eyes.  
  
But Sanzo was far from charming.  
  
Still, Gojyo moved languidly, careful enough to expose a little bit of everything. He even tied his hair back because it had been said more than once that he looked more striking with that look.  
  
But the great Genjo Sanzo never once did take his eyes off the goddamned newspaper.  
  
Frustrated, Gojyo pulled the rough fabric about his shoulders and tied the sash into a hasty knot. He was beginning to think the priest was some sort of eunuch. He strolled, very nonchalantly as was his way, towards Sanzo's little space.  
  
-- Now where does he keep his gun? -- Eyeing it nowhere, he propped himself down on the bed and immediately picked up a nice tune to hum.  
  
Sanzo stirred; a quick almost unnoticeable movement. He had obviously been off again. He had been thrown back into that room inside the monastery with the corpse of the one person he ever truly trusted. It frustrated him and he blamed the rain. That slight movement manifested that he had come back to the present. A very sudden jolt it had been, but at least he was back. The kappa's intrusion had been most welcomed.  
  
"What is it?" Gojyo heard the familiar coldness in the priest's voice. He shrugged in response.  
  
"I thought you might want to talk."  
  
"No. You thought wrong. I'm busy." Predictable, he thought. Genjo Sanzo is very predictable. He was grinning. All the gloomy thoughts that had prodded his brain earlier vanished in that brief second. He had the old gun- wielding, short-tempered Sanzo back.  
  
And yet--  
  
The rain suddenly was noticeable again. Not that it had ever ceased to be blatant, but it came in torrents now, brutal and cold. Gojyo felt suddenly nervous. He happened upon the windows and just outside was a terrible, terrible weather.  
  
Lightning flashed. Anyone who ever saw the streaks of white light crossing the sky would have felt utterly helpless, utterly small. It made one think that there were far greater things than that which are obvious and tangible and that, perhaps, there was a god after all. And Armageddon was coming.  
  
He laughed. Really, what else is there to do at the end of the world but to laugh your head off? He turned his gaze back at Sanzo. The priest had shrunken again and was desperately hiding beneath the thin newspapers. Gojyo knew the priest was trembling and that this storm was slowly pulling him apart.  
  
"You should change." Was all he managed to say and tossed the remaining robe at the priest. Gojyo never knew how to handle situations such as this. Soothing words were strictly for the birds.* He doubted the priest would want them anyway.  
  
"Don't be fucking stubborn. You could get sick."  
  
"Who's stubborn?!" was Sanzo's retort. He grabbed the robe and gathered enough composure to throw the paper violently at the half-breed before strutting his way towards a slightly dark angle of the room. He'd change all right, but definitely not in front of the kappa.  
  
Gojyo watched, shamelessly as the priest struggled with his sodden robes. It was dark (dammit) and he only caught glimpses of his back. He grunted-- goddamn priggish monk -- and started picking on his nails. He was thinking about a chat with Hakkai concerning a certain priest with an amazingly short temper and a Smith and Wesson to go with it. Hakkai said, invariably through smiling lips, that Sanzo had been Kouryou once and that apparently he'd lost a very pivotal person in his life: Koumyou Sanzo.  
  
"Oi." he started. He needed no answer from the dark corner where Sanzo stood, all the while still struggling with the robe.  
  
"I've been wondering," He was still picking on his fingernails though they were impeccably clean, "I've been wondering who this Koumyou Sanzo was."  
  
The shuffling from the corner stopped. Gojyo knew he was listening. He also knew he had to stop, but this, he thought, was his one time to finally `break' and burrow through the great surreptitious priest.  
  
"Hakkai's told me about your past. Well, fractions of it. I managed to put things together somehow." He stole a glance at the corner and saw that Sanzo was standing perfectly still, robe on and all.  
  
"I've always wondered why you have such a bad attitude."  
  
He definitely should stop.  
  
"I figured you couldn't have had such an ugly attitude at such an early age so,"  
  
He knew he would have a bullet through his head any moment now.  
  
"maybe, it came about because of that incident. I mean, it might have been really awful for you."  
  
Shuffling from the corner-- sound of metal against wood-- any moment now-- any moment--  
  
"I wonder what he would say if he could see you now."  
  
A flash of lightning followed by a deafening crash.  
  
It could have been thunder but the crash resounded throughout the cramped room. Gojyo knew it had been the gun. He had felt the bullet scuttle through the side of his arm and the air pressure had been strong. If he didn't have quick reflexes then he would be sporting a nice bullet hole in his head by now. Gojyo was never one to ponder on slight brushes with death.  
  
He stood up, still quite stunned, and slowly approached the figure still aiming the gun at him.  
  
"How dare you." came Sanzo's voice, evidently laden with rage and everything in between (sadness, hate, fear) His finger edged dangerously close to the trigger. His violet eyes shimmered.  
  
"How dare you! You don't fucking know me--" he said the words venomously, in violent gasps and startling intensity.  
  
Gojyo almost backed away with terror. He knew he had stepped on very personal grounds, but still, that did not give the priest the right to kill him.  
  
"How dare you." and the finger pressed down on the trigger.  
  
But nothing came. No deathly pain, no blood, no anything. Gojyo opened his eyes (he had not even noticed he'd closed them) and saw that he was still alive and that Sanzo was trembling with the Wesson still in his hand and his finger closing about the trigger.  
  
Click--click--click. Empty.  
  
A scuffle, a brief second, and Gojyo held the gun triumphantly. It was a hideous, ghastly, dangerous thing and he threw it into one of the many forgotten corners of the room. He sighed. All the moment's fury gone with that small release of breath. He had a cut on his arm and had missed getting killed.  
  
Sanzo was on the floor, blood trickling down his mouth. He did not struggle to get up. In fact, he did not move at all.  
  
"It's your fault." Gojyo whispered. He doubted the priest heard it.  
  
"It's your fault" and he bent down, took the priest by the shoulders, and sat him up. With the hem of his robe-- the one not bloodied from his own wound-- he dabbed at the injured mouth. He half expected the priest to run amok again and start fisting him. But nothing of the sort came: only broken sighs and sad violet eyes.  
  
The rain continued pouring outside.  
  
Gojyo bent his head and flicked his tongue. He wanted to say something along the lines of `sorry' but he was never really good at apologies. A hand instead had incredulously found its way to Sanzo's neck. His skin was smooth, this hand told him. And the golden tresses uncut because of their traveling, were of a silken texture.  
  
A most casual thing-- this-- he thought, as the other hand trailed down to the small of his back. Yes, a most casual thing-- and his lips touched the edge of his mouth, right above the already bluish mark. Sanzo tasted like blood. But of course, after all, he had hit him hard. And cigarettes.  
  
He was thinking, as he prodded the collarbone and as he deviously slipped a hand under the robe, how blood and cigarettes mixed together had a strangely fascinating flavor. This was Sanzo, he had to remind himself, not because the priest had not been spellbinding enough to be put side by side with the people Gojyo'd randomly sleep with. He had to remind himself because this in front of him, already slightly writhing from his touch, was a demigod who sported a Wesson and skin-tight black tops under priestly garments.  
  
It was funny how things were running crazy again. He had a notion that he had everything under control, now that he had his lips locked with another pair of slightly hesitant ones. Sanzo still tasted like blood. But of course--  
  
He liked to think this would go accordingly with whatever he dictated. And they stumbled through the darkened room, Gojyo with his arms flailing here and there, struggling to rid the monk of his robe. The sheets were already damp because of the goddamned broken window, goddamned draft.  
  
When he wound his arms around the priest, he knew if only at the very back of his head, that he was not in control of anything at all; and neither was Sanzo. They were both just moving along with some unseen, unheard, clandestine music.  
  
The rain served as witness to this all.  
  
He moaned because Sanzo was a demigod trapped underneath him; because Sanzo had the sharpest violet eyes; because Sanzo's skin was incredibly soft and because he truly would have given up anything for this. Sanzo smelled like rain, he thought, which was strange because he tasted of blood and cigarettes.  
  
Their robes were on the floor struggling with each other. Two white, rough cloths discarded. They obviously were not needed anymore. On the bed, Gojyo stifled the priest's mouth with a kiss, and he entered him in one sinuous motion. Every single strand of whatever packed the brain, left in gushes. Neuron after neuron was bushwhacked into another dimension. All that remained were shooting passions, blood and cigarettes and rain, and Sanzo on top of everything that mattered.  
  
This was existence being poured into a glass.  
  
He hadn't known when it stopped, but he came after a few more thrusts. Then the world came tumbling down. Here they were: a lump of limbs and sweat and blood. Blood, because he knew that somewhere along the line he had utterly lost his control. He had pounded too hard, too fast. He thought he could take everything, or rather, he thought he would be given everything.  
  
He was sorely, sorely mistaken.  
  
His eyes flickered to the body beside him and mumbled a sad apology, which was too quiet and too private.  
  
If he had heard him, Gojyo didn't know, because Genjo Sanzo had already closed his eyes.  
  
---  
  
Gojyo woke up. It was somewhere between the hours of three or four. It might have been earlier. He awoke because it was cold all of a sudden. He groped for a cigarette and luckily came across one. Sanzo's brand but he smoked it anyway. It was freezing. The cigarette offered illusions of warmth.  
  
There again were the trails of smoke and last night's events all asunder, all breaking loose in hovering motions. But no, he would not go there-- should not go there. The cigarette burned through the darkness, the dampness, through Gojyo's sharp red gaze. It had a mind of its own, the cigarette.  
  
There was a slight hitch of breath from somewhere very near him and he knew Sanzo was awake. He slid back into the covers, having finished smoking. He was caught immediately in the violet orbs that were strangely luminescent in the dark room.  
  
"I got some sticks from your pack." He stated and all at once realized how trivial that was.  
  
Somehow the silence was better. So instead he grasped the hand that rested near his own. He knew it was too bold a thing to do. It was strange how that simple gesture became poignant. It was sated with everything they failed to tell each other the previous night. Too poignant and he was ready to pull away when Sanzo's fingers intertwined with his. Gojyo knew everything was all right if only until sunrise.  
  
"It'd stopped raining." He whispered, wondering why he had not noted that right upon opening his eyes.  
  
"I know" came a subdued answer.  
  
In the darkness he was grinning at almost having been killed last night. It was all so comical now and he wondered why he had lashed out at the priest. "It's your fault," he had said, and that somehow started it all: the kiss, the tumbling through to the bed, the discarded robes. Sanzo had been a demigod and Gojyo wanted to think that, for a fleeting second, he thought he loved him. But hearts and minds had always been contradictory things. He could have fallen in love with him that first time he knocked on his door, only, pride got in the way.  
  
Let me hold you. But the words never left his tongue. Let me hold you, before all these sentiments disparage at daybreak. And his arm wound its way around Sanzo's frame.  
  
Sanzo tasted like blood, he thought. But of course-- of course.  
  
END.  
  
Whew. 


End file.
